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1
Ford, Ben. "Shipbuilding in Maryland, 1631-1850." W&M ScholarWorks, 2001. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd/1539626302.
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Jarvis, Michael J. "Cedars, Sloops and Slaves: The Development of the Bermuda Shipbuilding Industry, 1680-1750." W&M ScholarWorks, 1992. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd/1539625759.
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Gibson, Andrew Edward. "The abandoned ocean : a history of failed U.S. maritime policy." Thesis, Cardiff University, 1993. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.336505.
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Bellamy, Martin. "Danish naval administration and shipbuilding in the reign of Christian IV (1596-1648)." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 1997. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/1383/.
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In the early 17th century Christian IV of Denmark created a highly impressive navy. This thesis investigates the uses to which the navy was put, and assesses the ships that were built to meet these needs. It shows that the Danish navy was for a time the largest state-owned navy in Europe and that the dockyard used to build and maintain these ships was one of the finest in Europe. The administration of the navy is analysed in detail. It is shown that the lower administration of the dockyards and the seagoing navy was highly organised, but Christian IV's failure to reform the higher levels of administration seriously hampered the effectiveness of the navy. The navy grew beyond the bounds of what the state of Denmark-Norway could afford and naval finance became a highly contentious issue in the modernisation of the state. To build the navy's ships Christian IV brought in master shipwrights from England and Scotland. The organisation of naval ship-building is examined in detail and the design of Danish warships is analysed. The Scot David Balfour is shown to be one of the most innovative and successful shipwrights of the early modern period. The figure of Christian IV dominates the Danish navy in the early 17th century. He was involved in all aspects of its organisation from its use as a political force to the design of specific vessels. He created a highly impressive navy in terms of ships and dockyards but failed to see that it also needed an efficient administration to operate effectively.
5
Roberts, Ian Paul. "A question of construction : capital and labour in Wearside shipbuilding since the 1930's." Thesis, Durham University, 1988. http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/6404/.
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Empirically the central problematics addressed in this study are twofold. Firstly, an account was sought to explain the apparent retention of control over the division of labour by workers in the 1930's, and their apparent loss of this control in the 1980's. Secondly, the view of the British Shipbuilding Industry presented by those working within the labour process tradition is questioned. Such work, claiming general applicability, was often partial in its geographical focus, upon the Clyde and Tyne, and in its presentation of social action at the point of production, focusing on issues of change rather than routinisation, and on the activist account of labour within the workplace. In framing a largely non-activist account of the relationship between Capital and Labour on the wear from the 1930's to the 1980's it was important to develop an adequate theoretical framework. This task is addressed in Chapter One where the issue of the nature of structure and agency are dealt with, and an attempt is made to "unthink dualism" on the basis of a "receding ontology” of material determination. This theory is related to the labour process tradition which is demonstrated to be an unsatisfactory basis for the development of the empirical concerns. Rather, the concept of the employment relationship is shown to be a more satisfactory focus. On this basis the study looks at continuity and change within the industry and community on the Wear. Extraordinary episodes in the history of the industry, such as the employment of women during the Second World War, are detailed, as well as the more routine aspects of work in a shipyard. In relating these aspects to the wider community the debate engages with general accounts of the nature of the working class. The importance of a "cultural” perspective is developed throughout the work and control is seen to depend not only upon strategies of capital and labour, but also upon the development of moral legitimacy within relations of dominance and subordination.
6
Bektas, M. Yakup. "The British technological crusade to post-Crimean Turkey : electric telegraphy, railways, naval shipbuilding and armament technologies." Thesis, University of Kent, 1995. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.282484.
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Holloway, Anna Gibson. "On the Wings of the Wind: Changes in English Shipbuilding, Navigation and Shipboard Life, 1485-1650." W&M ScholarWorks, 1997. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd/1539626136.
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Delaney, Monique. ""Le Canada est un païs de bois" : forest resources and shipbuilding in New France, 1660-1760." Thesis, McGill University, 2003. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=84504.
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The colonial contribution to the French naval shipbuilding industry in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, explored within the context of the forest from which the resources for the industry were taken, was a remarkably successful venture that came to an end with the onset of war. In the past, the end of the French naval shipbuilding industry in New France has been attributed to the action or inaction of France that resulted in the inefficient use of forest resources. Issues of interest in, organization or support of colonial efforts by France, however, were nevertheless, limited by the immutable realities of the colonial forest environment. This thesis argues that the success of the industry, considered within the appropriate context, is a consequence of colonial persistence in the face of constraints imposed by the colonial forest environment---despite these other significant issues.The official correspondence, written by colonial officials in New France, record colonial efforts to supply France with timber and detail the development of a naval shipbuilding industry in the colony. These documents provide source material for a case study that demonstrates the constraints imposed by the colonial forests on the experience of colonists, timber suppliers and shipbuilders. The colonial forest was not the same as the forests in France. A simple transfer of knowledge and practice from one forest to another was insufficient to deal with the differences in climate, forest age, tree species and the extent to which human activity affected the different forests. These differences challenged the way in which colonists could use forest resources for their own needs, for export to France and for naval construction. To consider this use of resources, without considering the differences between the available materials in the colony and those available in France, is to look at the story removed from the setting in which it took place. The unique forest in the colony was the setting in which colonial shipbuilding took place. Any study of the development of this industry, or any other industry that relied on forest resources, must give consideration to the constraints and realities of that forest.
9
Peebles, Hugh B. "Warship building on the Clyde, 1889-1939 : a financial study." Thesis, University of Stirling, 1986. http://hdl.handle.net/1893/1789.
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The part played by warshipbuilding in sustaining the Clyde shipbuilding industry between 1889 and 1939 has received less attention than it deserves. Only a minority of firms undertook warshipbuilding in peacetime but they included some of the leading shipyards an the Clyde. This study, based on a detailed examination of accounts and cost records, shows that naval work was of critical importance for these firms from the 1890's onwards. All of the firms which took advantage of the expansion in the demand for warships in the 1890's were in financial difficulties and profitable naval contracts were largely responsible for reviving their fortunes. From then until the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, naval work constituted a major part of their output and the most profitable part of it. By 19149 all of the warshipbuilders had expanded their capacity and provided expensive new facilities largely an the strength of the demand for warships and the three biggest yards were owned by armaments manufacturers who were primarily interested in shipyards for their warshipbuilding capability. After the war, the demand for armaments contracted and the warshipbuilders were faced with the problem of finding profitable employment for capacity designed for building warships and warship engines. This proved to be impossible and the relative dearth of naval contracts in the 1920's and early 1930's was the primary cause of the severe financial difficulties in which they found themselves when the onset of the world financial crisis in 1931 brought merchant shipbuilding to a standstill. Only Beardmore's succumbed but, had rearmament not been in the offing, it is doubtful if many of the warshipbuilding yards would have survived the ensuing crisis. As it was the survivors regained their financial stability by 1939 only because of the revival in the demand for warships.
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Atkinson, Daniel Edward. "Shipbuilding and timber management in the Royal Dockyards 1750-1850 : an archaeological investigation of timber marks." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/472.
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This work presents a study of shipbuilding and timber management in the Royal Dockyards in the period 1750 – 1850, focusing on an archaeological investigation of ship timber marks. The first chapter outlines the concept of timber marking in shipbuilding contexts, stressing the multi-disciplinary approach to the study highlighted in the available archaeological and documentary evidence by which the practice of timber marking can be understood. Chapter two outlines the background to timber marking in the Georgian era and the development of the practice within the broader advances made in shipbuilding, technology and design prior to the end of the 17th century. Chapter three outlines the developments in shipbuilding and the introduction of systems to control and standardise the management of timber in the Royal Dockyards in the 18th century. In the latter half of the 18th century we will see the attempts of naval reformers to develop these systems of timber management and pave the way for the sweeping changes made at the beginning of the 19th century. Chapter four highlights these changes with the introduction of the Timber Masters and looks at the nature of timber management and the marking of timbers as identified in documentary sources. This evidence lays the foundation for the understanding of timber marking in the 19th century as witnessed in the archaeological record. The remaining chapters present the much more extensive archaeological evidence for timber marking among several high profile assemblages. The main assemblages presented in Chapters 5 to 9 show the diversity of timber marking practices and how they relate to the working processes of the Royal Dockyards. The research offers new insights into the understanding of shipbuilding and the management of timber in the Royal Dockyards between 1750 and 1850 and explores the possibilities for further avenues of study.
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Barkham, Michael Mordaunt. "Shipowning, shipbuilding and trans-Atlantic fishing in Spanish Basque ports, 1560-1630 : a case study of Motrico and Zumaya." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1990. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/251468.
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Shoebottom, Bradley Todd. "Gaius Samuel Turner of Albert County, a New Brunswick shipbuilder and entrepreneur, 1874-1892." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1999. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk1/tape9/PQDD_0021/MQ54646.pdf.
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Connors, Duncan Philip. "The rôle of government in the decline of the British shipbuilding industry, 1945-1980." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2009. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/1276/.
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This thesis studies the interrelationship between government and the shipbuilding industry in the United Kingdom during the so-called ‘Golden Age’ of economic growth between 1945 and 1973. It argues that actions of government in the 1960s and 70s aimed at arresting the decline of shipbuilding as an industry instead acted first as a brake on the industry’s development and second as one of the principal agents of its decline. It does this by demonstrating that the constant government led introspection into the shipbuilding industry between 1960 and 1966 delayed investment decisions by companies that were uncertain about which direction the government would take or whether it would provide funding. This thesis also demonstrates that the Wilson Labour governments’ instruments of modernisation and change, the Shipbuilding Inquiry Committee and the Shipbuilding Industry Board, chose and imposed technical and organisational solutions on the industry that did not reflect the prevailing orthodoxy of shipbuilding in competitor nations such as Japan and Sweden. This fatally damaged the industry during a time of demand for newly constructed vessels; the cheap price of crude oil in the 1960s led to a very high demand for very large crude carriers, supertankers, capable of transporting between one quarter and one half a million tons of crude oil from the Middle East to the industrial nations of North American and Europe. However, as the case studies of the Harland and Wolff and Scott Lithgow companies in this thesis demonstrates, British shipyards were ill equipped and poorly prepared to take advantage of this situation and when finally the shipyards were positioned to take advantage of the situation, the 1973 Yom Kippur War and subsequent OPEC oil embargo took away the demand for supertankers. This was when the British government dealt the now nationalised shipbuilding industry a fatal blow, subsidising supertankers no longer in demand for purchase at a heavily subsidised price by shipping lines that would place the vessels into immediate and long-term storage. In short, this thesis illuminates the complex relationship between government and industry that led to the demise of the British shipbuilding industry.
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O'Bannon, Colin Andrew. "“Innumerabyll Shotying of Gunnys and Long Chasyng One Another:” Heavy Artillery and Changes in Shipbuilding in Northern Europe in the Early Modern Period." The Ohio State University, 2011. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1323121842.
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Pavlidis, Laurent. "Construction navale traditionnelle et mutations d'une production littorale en Provence (Fin XVIIIe - début XXe siècles)." Thesis, Aix-Marseille, 2012. http://www.theses.fr/2012AIXM3092.
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Au XIXe siècle, la construction navale traditionnelle constitue une importante branche de l'économie maritime provençale. Elle est surtout l'affaire d'entreprises privées et n'est pas un simple prolongement des pratiques du passé. Marquée par des caractères originaux, elle est le fruit de ses capacités à évoluer en s'adaptant aux demandes des marchés. La hiérarchie des chantiers privés change au fil du siècle. Si Marseille reste le foyer majeur, les productions traditionnelles de La Ciotat et de La Seyne marquent le pas, celles de Toulon, Arles et Antibes stagnent ; à Saint-Tropez elles connaissent un réel essor, avec la livraison de grosses unités, tandis qu'à Martigues elles dominent le marché des bâtiments de petit cabotage. Cette évolution s'accompagne d'une modification des modèles construits. Pour les navires de fort tonnage, les types méditerranéens polacre, pinque, barque et brigantin laissent rapidement la place aux formes atlantiques brick, brig-goélette et trois-mâts. Seule la bombarde, purement méridionale, résiste jusque dans les années 1830 alors que l'emblématique tartane, trop souvent confondue avec le bateau, ne représente plus qu'une petite part de la production. Sur ces chantiers, les ouvriers – dont la diversité et la mobilité sont difficiles à atteindre travaillent dans des espaces dont les infrastructures modestes se rationalisent pour peu que l'administration des Ponts et Chaussées, nouvelle gestionnaire des terrains, puisse ou veuille répondre aux demandes des constructeursDuring the 19th century, traditional shipbuilding was an important branch of the Provencal maritime economy. It is mostly the business of private companies and is no longer only an extension of practices from the past. Marked by original characters, it is the fruit of its capacities of evolving whilst adapting itself to the market's demands. The hierarchy of the private construction sites changes throughout the century. If Marseille stays the major outbreak, the traditional productions of La Ciotat and of La Seyne mark time, the ones in Toulon, Arles and Antibes stagnate; in Saint-Tropez they know a true development, with the delivery of large units, whilst in Martigues they dominate the market of small coasting trade ships. This evolution is accompanied by a modification of the constructed models. For large vessels, the Mediterranean types, polacre, pink, bark and brigantine quickly leave place to the Atlantic shapes brig, brig-schooner and three-masted vessel - only the Bomb-vessel, purely Mediterranean, resists until the 1830's, while the iconic tartan too often confused with the boat, represents only a small part of the production. On these construction sites, the workers – whose diversity and mobility are difficult to reach - work in spaces with modest infrastructures which rationalize themselves, for little that the administration of Roads and bridges, new land manager, would be able or willing to meet the demands of manufacturers
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Dyndal, Gjert Lage. "Land based air power or aircraft carriers? : the British debate about maritime air power in the 1960s." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2009. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/1058/.
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Numerous studies, books, and articles have been written on Britains retreat from its former empire in the 1960s. Journalists wrote about it at the time, many people who were involved wrote about it in the immediate years that followed, and historians have tried to put it all together. The issues of foreign policy at the strategic level and the military operations that took place in this period have been especially well covered. However, the question of military strategic alternatives in this important era of British foreign policy has been less studied. This dissertation discusses such high-profile projects as the TSR.2 and F.111, prospective VTOL aircraft and not least the CVA-01 fleet carrier, but most of all it focuses on the issue of military strategy. The rivalry between the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force was largely about the questions of carrier aviation versus land-based air power – and which strategic option would best answer the British need to maintain influence as the garrisons were being scaled down. The Royal Navy argued for replacement fleet carriers for their mobile seaborne strategy, while the Royal Air Force argued that land-based air power would be as effective and far less costly. By using this underlying strategic debate as the framework for understanding more specific debates on aircraft, ships and weapon systems, this dissertation aims to bring new light to our understanding of the dramatic restructuring and altered priorities these two military services saw during the 1960s. The story may be divided into three broad periods: From 1960 until mid 1963, it was a conceptual debate on ‘Carrier Task Forces’ and a concrete alternative ‘Island Strategy’. This ended in July 1963 with a Cabinet decision in favour of new fleet carriers. However, the Royal Air Force and the Treasury kept fighting this decision. Their continued resistance, together with the new Labour Government with Denis Healey as Secretary of State for Defence, changed the decision of 1963. The highpoint of the debate on carrier aviation and land-based air power came during 1965-66, ending with the decision of February 1966 to cancel the CVA-01 and gradually phase out the existing carrier fleet. Denis Healey then used the arguments for land-based air power as a rationale for the decision. The dissertation rounds off with a discussion of the planned phase-out of the existing carrier fleet. However, the story saw a different end than planned, as new strategic challenges in home waters came about and the evolving VTOL Harrier aircraft and the ‘through-deck cruisers’ gave new possibilities. This is a historical study of the British debate about maritime air power and strategic alternatives in the 1960s. However, the detailed story and arguments used for and against both alternatives should clearly have relevance to any conceptual debates on carrier and land-based air power.
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Mallin, Kenneth. "N. Hingley & Sons Limited - Black Country Anchor Smith and Chain Cable Maker : a study of the world's premier manufacturer of ships' anchors and cables in the period 1890-1918." Thesis, University of Warwick, 1996. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/36367/.
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The principal objective of this dissertation is to position the firm of N Hingley & Sons Limited in its rightful place in the economic history of the Black Country and of Britain in the period 1890 to 1918. As an original contribution to knowledge of the subject, the study focuses on a modestly sized firm of ironmakers in the Black Country that achieved a position of almost total hegemony in the provision of anchors and ships cables to the navies and merchant fleets of the world. This was at a time when 90 per cent of all chain manufactured in Britain came from the Black Country and when the bulk of the ships of the world were constructed in British yards. The success of the firm was based on the solid foundation built by Noah Hingley in harnessing natural resources to a cooperative labour force under the direction of a paternalistic family of marked goodwill. Chapters two and three place the Hingley firm in the economic context of the times. Particular attention is given to how well the enterprise conforms to NrCloskey's analysis that in this period British industry did well and did all that could have been reasonably expected of it. Chapter four draws heavily on the Hingley archival material to establish an outline of the firm's trading activities during the period under review. This process is extended to the limits of the files in chapters five, six and seven. Chapter five examines the evolution from a family partnership to a closely held family company to a broadly held private company demonstrating the continuing ability of the Hingley family to adapt, developing an appropriate structure at each stage. Chapter six examines the basis of Hingleys' hegemonic position : the excellence of its wrought iron, its ability to fashion large diameter cable (up to 6"), and its state-of-the-art anchors. Chapter seven examines the form and development of Hingleys' highly efficient method of marketing. This was a method that ensured that the entirety of its production was always sold year on year and regardless of the fluctuations of business activity. Chapter eight is supplementary to chapter seven and examines Hingleys' greatest achievement. This was the firm's ability to create combinations of manufacturers and mini-cartels in order to capture the lion's share of the production of large diameter ships' cables and anchors for a selected list of firms. This was not a simple rigging of the market. Rather, it was a precondition of sustained high quality that provided a first class product at a fair price. The navies of the world benefited from this strategy. The provision of first class products allied to excellent marketing was the key to Hingleys status in the industry. Chapter nine, dealing with relations with governments, examines the growing levels of state control in the period under review. Beginning with the unstoppable momentum for social and political change, the emergence of the military-industrial complex world wide ensured a greater degree of involvement by the state in matters of business and commerce. In the latter stages of the chapter, the way in which the Board coped with the command economy of the Great War is examined in the context of the resilience of the firm in adapting to the economic and cultural changes of the first quarter of the current century. It was this ability that enabled it to trade on successfully for a further fifty years after the end of this story. My dissertation endeavours to show that Noah Hingley's firm was a fine example of solid achievement within the parameters of what was sensible and economically achievable in Britain at that time.
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Hoberty, Trevor. "The Ruination of the Ship: Shipworms and their Impact on Human Maritime Travel." Wittenberg University Honors Theses / OhioLINK, 2020. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=wuhonors1617894997939557.
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Marcil, Eileen Reid. "Shipbuilding at Quebec, 1763-1893 : the square rigger trade." Doctoral thesis, Université Laval, 1987. http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11794/29231.
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Le, Bot Pierre. "La première marine de Louis XV : une expérience fondatrice (1715-1745)." Electronic Thesis or Diss., Sorbonne université, 2021. http://www.theses.fr/2021SORUL054.
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Après avoir été la première d’Europe, la marine de Louis XIV a commencé à s’effondrer à partir de 1707, et elle n’était déjà plus que l’ombre d’elle-même lorsque Louis XV a succédé à son arrière-grand-père en 1715. Secrétaire d’État de la Marine de 1723 à 1749, le comte de Maurepas est traditionnellement considéré comme le bâtisseur d’une nouvelle marine, qui aurait fait ses preuves au cours de la guerre de Succession d’Autriche, après une longue période de paix avec la Grande-Bretagne. Les archives du Conseil de Marine révèlent pourtant que c’est dès 1719, que cette reconstruction a été entreprise. Avec le soutien du Régent, les membres de ce conseil dirigé par le comte de Toulouse, Amiral de France, ont alors entrepris de se doter d’un instrument naval puissant, qu’ils destinaient à la guerre d’escadre. Pendant quelques années, d’importants efforts ont été faits pour mettre en chantier un grand nombre de nouveaux vaisseaux, avant que ce projet ne soit abandonné en 1725, suite à une forte réduction des dépenses. Il s’avère donc que le rôle de Maurepas a surtout consisté à entretenir, tant bien que mal, une marine restée inachevée. Il s’est également efforcé, il est vrai, de la préparer à la guerre de course qu’il entendait mener en cas de nouveau conflit contre la Grande-Bretagne. Le fait est cependant que les opérations qui ont suivi l’entrée en guerre de la France en 1744 ont très vite révélé, non seulement les limites de cette stratégie, mais aussi l’impuissance et les fragilités de la première marine de Louis XV, dont Maurepas prononcera lui-même l’acte de décès dans ses « Réflexions sur le commerce et sur la marine » de 1745After being the first in Europe, Louis XIV’s navy began to collapse from 1707, and it was already half-ruined when Louis XV succeeded its great grandfather in 1715. Having been Secretary of State for the Navy from 1723 to 1749, the Comte de Maurepas is traditionally regarded as the founder of a new navy, which would have proved its worth during the War of the Austrian Succession, after a long period of peace with Great Britain. However, the archives of the Navy Council reveal that it was as early as 1719 that this reconstruction was undertaken. With the support of the Regent, the members of this board headed by the Comte de Toulouse, Admiral of France, planned to create the naval instrument they needed for a guerre d’escadre. For a few years, great efforts were made to build a large number of new ships, before this program was abandoned in 1725, following a drastic budget reduction. It turns out, therefore, that Maurepas’s role was mainly to maintain, as best he could, a navy that remained unfinished. Admittedly, he also tried to prepare it for the guerre de course he intended to fight in the event of a new war with Great Britain. The fact is, however, that the naval operations which followed the outbreak of war in 1744 quickly revealed not only the limits of this strategy, but also the inability and the weaknesses of Louis XV's first navy, of which Maurepas himself performs the autopsy in his « Reflec- tions on Trade and Navy » of 1745
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Laanela, Erika Elizabeth. "Instrucci ᵴica (1587) by Diego Garc?de Palacio: an early nautical handbook from Mexico." 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/1969.1/ETD-TAMU-3286.
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In 1587, an ambitious colonial bureaucrat in Mexico City published a handbook
titled Instrucción náutica. Although navigational books were common throughout the
16th century, the Instrucción náutica was the first printed volume that included an
extensive discussion of ship construction and design, and its publication was thus a
significant event in the history of early modern nautical technology. While the work is
frequently cited in discussions of 16th-century Spanish ship construction and seafaring,
little in-depth analysis of the text has been undertaken to verify its accuracy. In order to
understand the significance of the book, a critical evaluation was undertaken of its
context and content and of the motivations and background of its author.
Analysis of documents written by, about, and to Diego García de Palacio reveals
that he held positions of academic, religious, and political power in New Spain, that his
motives for publishing the book were complex, and that he consulted a range of
disparate sources. Significantly, archival correspondence suggests that García de
Palacio was an observer and administrator of navigation and ship construction, rather
than an expert practitioner. Nonetheless, comparison of the technical content of the book with other sources
of information for 16th-century ships and seafaring, including contemporary treatises,
iconography, and archaeological materials confirms the overall accuracy of the text. The
navigational materials included in the Instrucción náutica reflect information adapted
from existing texts, providing a solid overview of the most common techniques of
navigation in use at the time. While useful, García de Palacio’s discussion of ship
design was clearly intended for a non-specialist audience. Perhaps the most original
technical contributions are his descriptions of the rigging of Spanish ships. The brief
discussion of naval strategy is historically significant due to its juxtaposition between the
last of the great naval battles fought primarily with boarding tactics, and the movement
toward increasing reliance on the broadside.
By comparing García de Palacio’s text to other sources of information, this study
has confirmed the reputation of the Instrucción náutica as one of the most
comprehensive and accurate written descriptions of 16th-century Spanish seafaring
practices.
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Vidoni, Tullio. "The journal of Roberto da Sanseverino (1417-1487) : a study on navigation and seafaring in the fifteenth century." Thesis, 1993. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/1901.
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Roberto da Sanseverino went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1458. He travelled from Venice to Jaffa on a galley and made his return, from Acre to Ancona, on a three-masted sailing ship. During both voyages he kept very accurate logs of distances, courses and wind directions. He described the sails employed for different modes of sailing and other activities pertaining to the safe operation of the vessels. These logs are contained in Sanseverino's diary of his pilgrimage and are an essential part of an original manuscript kept at the University of Bologna. This diary is the first documentation, and the only one known to exist up to this time, which presents a complete description of the methods employed by medieval shipmasters to navigate and handle their ships overlong voyages. The accuracy and reliability of the numeric data and of the other facts contained in the logs are such that, among other unusual findings, they make it possible to deter-mine the length of the Venetian sea mile, the angles of tack of medieval ships to windward and the speeds attainable under various conditions of sailing. Other original descriptions encompass the handling of ships in anchorages and some of the technical considerations that were essential to ensure ship seaworthiness under different conditions of cargo. Further reflections on all these data make it possible to arrive at certain conclusions about the economic constraints of sea ventures in different seasons of the year.
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Tracey, Michael MacLellan. "Wooden ships, iron men and stalwart ladies : the TSS Douglas Mawson saga." Phd thesis, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/1885/149907.
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Millar, Roderick J. O. "The technology and economics of water-borne transportation systems in Roman Britain." Thesis, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/13197.
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The thesis examines a number of questions concerning the design, construction,
costs and use of Romano-British seagoing and inland waters shipping. In the first part the
reasons for the methods of construction for seagoing and coastal vessels, such as the
Blackfriars Ship 1, the St. Peter Port Ship and the Barland's Farm Boat, have been
investigated. The constructional characteristics of the two ships are massive floors and
frames, with the planking fastened only to the floors and frames with heavy clenched iron
nails. There is no edge to edge fastening of the planks, with tenons inserted into mortises
cut into the edges of the planks, as is normal in the Mediterranean tradition of ship
construction in the Roman period. The Romano-British ships also differ from the
Scandinavian tradition of clinker building with overlapping planks nailed to each other
along their length. It has been concluded that a natural phenomenon, the large tidal range
around the British Isles and the northern coasts of Gaul and Germany, had a dominant effect
on the design of seagoing vessels. Deep water harbours, such as Portus, Caesar ea
Maritima and Alexandria in the Mediterranean, where ships could lie afloat at all times,
were neither practicable nor economic with the technology available. At the British ports,
such as Dover, London and Chichester, ships had to come in with the high tide, moor to
simple wharves at the high tide level, and then settle on the ground as the tide dropped. At
the numerous small havens, inlets and estuaries around the British coasts, ships would come
in with the tide, settle on a natural or man-made 'hard' as the tide fell, and discharge cargo
over the side to carts, pack animals or people. This mode of operation required sturdy ships
that could take the ground without damage, and also withstand a certain amount of
'bumping' on the bottom in the transition period from fully afloat to fully aground.
The second part of the thesis investigates the cost of building, maintaining and
operating various types of vessels. To do this, a new mode for measuring cost, the Basic
Economic Unit, or BEU, has been developed. The probable volume of the various types of
cargoes carried has been examined. It appears that grain was the dominant cargo in both
coastal and overseas traffic. The total cost of building, maintaining and operating the
seagoing and inland water shipping was less than one percent of the gross product of
Britain, a small cost for an essential service.